1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



587 



the open air. Somebody asked him if it need- 

 ed turning around so the sun could get at all 

 sides. Mr. O. told us if we would get up early 

 enough in the morning we might see that the 

 sun goes clear around the barrel, from morn- 

 ing till night, and actually laps over quite a 

 piece. No turning around is necessary. You 

 can get the finest strawberries in the world by 

 the barrel plan, and more bushels to the acre, 

 that is, if you had an acre covered with the 

 strawberry-barrels, than you could possiby 

 get by any other plan. 



OUR NEWER STRAWBERRIES. 



Although I have again and again declared I 

 did not want our list of strawberries made any 

 larger unless for some exceedingly good rea- 

 son, I find at least some of the new ones I 

 have seen in bearing for the first time that 

 promise very favorably. The first is the 

 Ridgeway ; and if it will grow on my own 

 grounds as I saw it on Wilbur Fenn's, at 

 Tallmadge, O., I shall certainly give it a place. 

 The plant is a remarkably strong, robust 

 grower. The berries ripen a little late, but 

 are remarkable for their size, beauty of shape, 

 and for the fact that they stand away up 

 above the foliage and out of the dirt. Every 

 berry seems to be as perfect, almost, as if it 

 were turned in a lathe. In this respect it 

 resembles the old Cumberland Triumph. Now, 

 this is the way it behaves on cousin Fenn's 

 grounds. Most of us are beginning to learn 

 that the berry that does well in one locality 

 may not in another, even near by. 



The second one I wish to call attention to 

 is the Empress, just brought out by Matthew 

 Crawford. I visited his place when most of 

 the strawberries were gone, and the dry 

 weather was fast using up the late ones. The 

 Empress, however, had a magnificent growth 

 of foliage, and green berries and ripe ones 

 were both in great abundance. When I sug- 

 gested it was a late berry, friend Crawford 

 said it commenced ripening quite early, on 

 the contrary. I know the plant is a tremen- 

 dously strong and robust grower, because we 

 have it on our own grounds. Now, if it bears 

 everywhere else as it does at Matthew Craw- 

 ford's place, it is certainly remarkable, because 

 it holds out " head and shoulders " above any 

 thing else. 



Last, but not least, I wish to call attention 

 to the Hunn When I asked friend Crawford 

 for the latest berry known, he took me off to 

 a distant part of the field and showed me the 

 patch of Hunns, all green fruit. There was 

 hardly a berry ripe enough to get the flavor, 

 and yet almost every thing else except the 

 Empress was perfectly done for the season. 

 The Hunn is a peculiar-looking berry, but it 

 did not seem to be a very robust grower, per- 

 haps because the ground was too poor where 

 it happened to be located. I should say it is 

 a good deal later than the Gandy and Parker 

 Earle in time of ripening. We shall give it a 

 good test next year. 



CAUJNG* THINGS HUM BUGS. 



I have been trying for five or six years to 

 get a taste of the Japanese wineberry, and I 



think it Ins been generally voted a humbug, 

 mainly because it does not stand our winters. 

 Well, a few days ago I had another one of 

 my happy surprises in finding some clusters 

 of wineberries, about as handsome as any 

 thing I ever saw in the small fruit line; and 

 when I came to taste them, the delicious 

 sprightly acid, with a pronounced raspberry 

 flavor, was another one of my happy surprises. 

 A dozen plants came through the severe win- 

 ter — in fact, one of the most severe winters 

 we ever had — with scarcely an injury. The 

 beaut}- of the clusters of fruit, together with 

 their delicious, unique flavor, made me feel 

 as though the plant was worth all the time I 

 have fussed with it. 



While we are on this subject, here is at least 

 one friend who takes the part of the much- 

 condemned Gault raspberry as follows: 



What is the Gault everbearing raspberry doing? I 

 never hear about it any more. I have some of them, 

 and I think they are all right. 



Oakley, 111., July 11. Frank Baker. 



THE PORTER APPLE — ITS EARLY FRUITING. 



I think I have before mentioned the Porter 

 apple-tree that bore two pretty good-sized 

 apples of excellent quality in less than a year 

 after it was put out. Well, the second year — 

 that is, during the present summer — it had 

 eleven very fair apples ; and I should call it, 

 judging from these specimens, the best early 

 apple I ever tasted. Can anybody tell me 

 why the Porter apple has not been made more 

 of ? Is it a trait of that particular variety to 

 bear so early ? Why, the tree that had the 

 eleven apples on is no part of it higher than I 

 can reach. This seems a most desirable trait 

 in an apple-tree, because in an orchard of over 

 100 trees we did not get any apples worth 

 mentioning until the orchard was almost or 

 quite ten years old. The Porter is a tart 

 apple, similar to the Early Harvest. The 

 shape is a little oblong, and the perfume of 

 the ripe apples is exquisite, even when you 

 are several feet away from the tree. The skin 

 is very thin ; color, a beautiful whitish yellow 

 when ripe, and so tender it almost melts in 

 one's mouth. Now, that is my description of 

 it. But I am told by nurserymen that the 

 Porter is comparatively well known, and yet 

 nobody has ever yet made any particular fuss 

 about it. 



GOOD ROADS. 



Medina is one of the muddy counties. In 

 the spring it is no unusual sight to see wagons 

 in the mud up to the hub ; and sometimes it 

 requires a good team to pull an empty wagon 

 just a few miles. Last winter, and, in fact, 

 several months before winter, quite a stir was 

 made for better roads. A mass meeting was 

 held ; and at this meeting, of course there 

 were certain ones who vehemently objected 

 to putting any more burdens on the overbur- 

 dened tax-payers — especially the poor farmers. 

 Finally, when there seemed to be a good 

 chance for a regular row about the new roads, 

 somebody started out to see how many volun- 

 tary subscriptions he could get for work to fix 

 one of the worst pieces of road in the county 



